Inbound marketing is a methodology that can help you reach your target audience who are already looking for you. It aims to provide relevant information to people, and in doing so nurturing them to become customers. Marketers vouch for inbound marketing and many businesses are adopting it. Just like any other marketing strategy, beginners implementing inbound strategy can make mistakes. These mistakes can make it more difficult to achieve the desired results.
Mistakes are inevitable, that is how you can make better improvements. In this article, we will discuss some common mistakes marketers make in their inbound marketing strategy. These mistakes can help you learn and not repeat them. It can save you a lot of time and effort. If you have already implemented an inbound strategy and it is not giving the desired results, there may be some reasons why.
To build a strong inbound marketing strategy, here are some mistakes that might be preventing you from achieving yous desired results.
Not having a plan
Before getting started with your inbound strategy, you need to build a plan. Plan your entire strategy and set objectives. These objectives can give you a direction where your inbound strategy should go. Setting goals and objectives in the beginning is important. If you implement an inbound marketing strategy without goals, you will not know where your strategy is going and how to measure it. Having a plan beforehand can enable you to create an organized and effective inbound marketing strategy.
Start by planning what your goals and objectives are going to be. Set KPIs that you can measure. Form teams that are going to be working on your inbound marketing strategy. Determine how you are going to research your target audience. Plan what type of content is going to be relevant for your target customers. Select the various channels and platforms you will use for content distribution. All these things and more can be covered in your plan. Don’t skip this step as it can make your inbound strategy implementation confusing and unorganized.
Setting unrealistic goals
Without setting goals you will not be able to measure all the progress you make. When you set goals, you need to ensure that they are realistic and measurable. Don’t set goals based on very high expectations that are not possible to achieve. Instead set goals that are realistic and achievable. Follow the SMART format when you set your goals. Here is what SMART stand for:
Specific: Every goal should be specific and not vague. It should be associated with a metric. For example, set a goal like this “post twice a week on social media platforms” rather than “post on social media often.”
Measurable: The goals you set should be easily measurable. Without numbers you cannot track your progress.
Attainable: Goals should be attainable. Before setting goals, consider how much your team can be able to do, any things that can go wrong. If you have very high expectations that your team cannot meet, it can be discouraging. Ensure that your goals can be reached realistically.
Relevant: Goals should be relevant to your business and the marketing strategy you are trying to implement.
Timely: Goals should have deadlines. Set a deadline for every single goal as this can help organize and measure the success of a campaign.
Not setting up blogs
Blogs are important for your inbound marketing strategy. If you are overlooking creating a blog, then you would not get the desired results from your inbound marketing strategy. Blogs help you attract organic and quality traffic to your website. When you create a blog, the page is indexed by search engines. This helps you get more opportunities to show up on a search engine results page. When your audience is looking for information relevant to your business or industry they can come across your website. It is important to use topics that are searched by your audience so that your blog appears in their searches.
Each blog post can also include CTAs or call to actions which direct users to other relevant pages of your website. CTAs help direct users on important pages where they can convert. Moreover, blogs help you build trust and credibility among your audience. By educating your audience with relevant information, you can establish yourself as an industry leader.
Advertising through content
The focus of inbound marketing is to create content that educates your audience. By doing so you provide them with valuable information that helps them solve their problems. If you are creating content that is only based on selling your products or services, then that is a big mistake. Audiences look for content that educates them, and not try to sell something to them. It is fine to include some CTAs within your blog article, leading audiences to the relevant products or services. However, it is not okay to constantly talk about products throughout the content.
Always focus on providing value through your content. Create helpful blog articles that talk about important topics from your industry. This content should be engaging enough to attract your audience’s attention. Through content you can enable audiences to trust your business and encourage them to invest in it.
Not focusing on your customers
Inbound methodology requires you to be focused on your potential customers. This means creating your campaigns and content that are relevant to your target audiences. Personalized content is what attracts quality leads to your business. How can you ensure that you are focused on your target customers? These are the ways in which you can target quality leads:
Buyer personas
Inbound strategy required you to build buyer personas and refer to them before creating any type of content. Based on your buyer personas you can plan your content. Focus on topics that are interesting and useful to your audiences. Buyer personas can help you determine the goals and challenges of your target customers. You can provide content that helps them achieve their goals and solve their problems. Understanding customers is important to create personalized content for them.
Keyword research
Conduct a keyword research before planning your content strategy. Keywords are search queries that people use to find a particular information on Google. Research the relevant search queries used by your target customers. This can help you generate more ideas for your content. Long-tailed keywords are more specific, and these types of keywords can be used as blog topics or subtopics. With the right keywords there is more opportunity for you to show up on the search results pages where you are visible to your audience.
Not including sales teams
Sales teams are as important to your inbound marketing strategy as marketing teams. They have a direct communication with your leads and nurture them further down the funnel. Sales teams should be included when planning your inbound marketing campaigns. They also need to be updated about all the campaigns and leads. This helps sales reps understand the leads better and communicate with them effectively. They can give the right answers and offer solutions to help leads with their problems.
Moreover, the sales team knows the customers better as they communicate with them. Hence, they can give their expertise and contribute to the campaigns. Also, they can give ideas as to what type of content and topics most customers are interested in. Always include your sales team so that they can offer more insights which will be valuable to your inbound campaigns. In addition, being updated about everything can help them engage with the leads better and convert them.
Measuring results
Implementing an inbound marketing strategy is not enough, you need to monitor it frequent to see your progress. Many businesses overlook the importance of measuring the results of your marketing campaigns. Look at your goals and the related KPIs, analyze these metrics to track the progress of inbound marketing campaigns. Measuring results help you further optimize and improve existing campaigns.
Many businesses rely on inbound marketing strategy to help them attract and nurture their customers. If you are one of them then be sure that you are not making the mistakes mentioned above. Beginners can often make these mistakes; hence it is better to know what to avoid. Always ensure that your customers are at the center of your inbound marketing strategy. Avoiding these mistakes can help you create a successful inbound marketing strategy.
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